Siddi

Siddi elders: the last link to the afro-indian community past.

Scatted through out in the Southern part of India,the Siddis have seen better days. But now life is tough for these Indians of African descent. As the society discriminates them due to their dark skin and the government refuses to give them land, the community emigrated, over time, to remote areas of Karnataka, living illegally in reserve forests. As young people leave their villages to go seek for work in the city, the elders are left without help and are in despair. In the past, most of the elders made a living farming for brahmins, the higher cast in India. Now that they have aged, they can’t farm anymore. This series of photographs is part of a bigger and ongoing project on the Siddi community, I started working on since 2013